Surveillance in a 'Different World'

While worthy of note, the "striking" fact that nearly 70 percent of Americans would support telephone and e-mail monitoring of individuals the government deems suspicious is beside the point. The Fourth Amendment, not wavering sentiment, sets the limit on government authority to conduct warrantless searches.

A chief virtue of that amendment lies in its refusal to condone the very abuses to civil liberty that the public might otherwise embrace in fretful days.